Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race

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Golden Age of the Celts

But we are anticipating, and must return to the period
of the origins of Celtic history. As astronomers have
discerned the existence of an unknown planet by the
perturbations which it has caused in the courses of
those already under direct observation, so we can discern
in the fifth and fourth centuries before Christ
the presence of a great power and of mighty movements
going on behind a veil which will never be
lifted now. This was the Golden Age of Celtdom in
Continental Europe. During this period the Celts
waged three great and successful wars, which had
no little influence on the course of South European
history. About 500 B.C. they conquered Spain from
the Carthaginians. A century later we find them
engaged in the conquest of Northern Italy from the
Etruscans. They settled in large numbers in the
territory afterwards known as Cisalpine Gaul, where
many names, such as Mediolanum (Milan), Addua
(Adda), Viro-dunum (Verduno), and perhaps Cremona
(creamh, garlic),7 testify still to their occupation. They
left a greater memorial in the chief of Latin poets,
whose name, Vergil, appears to bear evidence of his
Celtic ancestry.8 Towards the end of the fourth
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century they overran Pannonia, conquering the Illyrians.

Alliances with the Greeks

All these wars were undertaken in alliance with the
Greeks, with whom the Celts were at this period on
the friendliest terms. By the war with the Carthaginians
the monopoly held by that people of the trade
in tin with Britain and in silver with the miners of
Spain was broken down, and the overland route across
France to Britain, for the sake of which the Phocæans
had in 600 B.C. created the port of Marseilles, was
definitely secured to Greek trade. Greeks and Celts
were at this period allied against Phœnicians and
Persians. The defeat of Hamilcar by Gelon at
Himera, in Sicily, took place in the same year as that
of Xerxes at Salamis. The Carthaginian army in that
expedition was made up of mercenaries from half a
dozen different nations, but not a Celt is found in the
Carthaginian ranks, and Celtic hostility must have
counted for much in preventing the Carthaginians from
lending help to the Persians for the overthrow of
their common enemy. These facts show that Celtica
played no small part in preserving the Greek type of
civilisation from being overwhelmed by the despotisms
of the East, and thus in keeping alive in Europe the
priceless seed of freedom and humane culture.

Alexander the Great

When the counter-movement of Hellas against the
East began under Alexander the Great we find the
Celts again appearing as a factor of importance.

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In the fourth century Macedon was attacked and
almost obliterated by Thracian and Illyrian hordes.
King Amyntas II. was defeated and driven into exile.
His son Perdiccas II. was killed in battle. When
Philip, a younger brother of Perdiccas, came to the
obscure and tottering throne which he and his successors
were to make the seat of a great empire he
was powerfully aided in making head against the
Illyrians by the conquests of the Celts in the valleys
of the Danube and the Po. The alliance was continued,
and rendered, perhaps, more formal in the days
of Alexander. When about to undertake his conquest
of Asia (334 B.C.) Alexander first made a compact with
the Celts “who dwelt by the Ionian Gulf” in order
to secure his Greek dominions from attack during his
absence. The episode is related by Ptolemy Soter in
his history of the wars of Alexander.9 It has a vividness
which stamps it as a bit of authentic history, and
another singular testimony to the truth of the narrative
has been brought to light by de Jubainville. As
the Celtic envoys, who are described as men of haughty
bearing and great stature, their mission concluded,
were drinking with the king, he asked them, it is said,
what was the thing they, the Celts, most feared.
The envoys replied: “We fear no man: there is
but one thing that we fear, namely, that the sky should
fall on us; but we regard nothing so much as the
friendship of a man such as thou.” Alexander bade
them farewell, and, turning to his nobles, whispered:
“What a vainglorious people are these Celts!”
Yet the answer, for all its Celtic bravura and flourish,
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was not without both dignity and courtesy. The
reference to the falling of the sky seems to give a
glimpse of some primitive belief or myth of which it
is no longer possible to discover the meaning.10 The
national oath by which the Celts bound themselves
to the observance of their covenant with Alexander is
remarkable. “If we observe not this engagement,”
they said, “may the sky fall on us and crush us, may
the earth gape and swallow us up, may the sea burst
out and overwhelm us.” De Jubainville draws attention
most appositely to a passage from the “Táin Bo
Cuailgne,” in the Book of Leinster11, where the Ulster
heroes declare to their king, who wished to leave
them in battle in order to meet an attack in another
part of the field: “Heaven is above us, and earth
beneath us, and the sea is round about us. Unless
the sky shall fall with its showers of stars on the
ground where we are camped, or unless the earth shall
be rent by an earthquake, or unless the waves of the
blue sea come over the forests of the living world, we
shall not give ground.”12 This survival of a peculiar
oath-formula for more than a thousand years, and its
reappearance, after being first heard of among the
Celts of Mid-Europe, in a mythical romance of Ireland,
is certainly most curious, and, with other facts
which we shall note hereafter, speaks strongly for the
community and persistence of Celtic culture.13